A Deer in Headlights part one
by Dr. Careidas
Summary: A European journalist wakes up on a airplane, without knowing where he's going or why. When he realizes it, he's in for the revelation of a lifetime. Then a desperate fight for survival, stranded on Marcross Island, begins.


**Introduction**

**A European journalist wakes up on a airplane two years into the future. He doesn't know where he is or why - but when he finds out, he is in for a shocking relevation. **

I woke up as someone was nudging my arm and addressing me in English.

"Please wake up sir, we are about the land in just a few minutes", said a women in her early thirties, wearing a flight attend's uniform.

"Right, of course", I replied with a quick smile, albeit having absolutly no idea on where we were supposed to be landing and much less why.

I started to take a look at the surroundings inside the plane. I was sitting in a comfortable leather clad chair and the whole cabin looked spacious and state-of-the-art. I was obviously in first class, sitting by the window with a whole row to my own. Then I looked at myself. I was wearing a pair of blue jeans, sneakers, a white t-shirt and thin, black leather jacket. Checking my pockets, all the usual stuff was there, wallet with cash and credit cards, sun glasses and my Sony Ericsson cell phone. At least my things were in order. But I still had no clue as to why I was aboard this plane and where I was supposed to be going.

"Focus, for god's sake", I started thinking to myself. The next thing I did was looking out of the window in order to get an idea of where I was, as the plane came down below the clouds and started its landing preparations. First I saw nothing but water, but eventually an island came into view and soon the landing strip.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the international media. This is your captain speaking, we are now landing on Macross Island Airport. It's a sunny day, with little to no clouds and a temperature of 22 degrees celsius. The designated shuttle buses outside the terminal will take you right to the press center".

Now I opened my mouth in awe. He didn't say...no, I rationalized. He couldn't have. It must be some other M Island. There are plenty of those around, and besides, I'm probably to dozy to have heard it correctly. The other things the flight captain said actually made sense, I'm a journalist and me being aboard a first class jet along with other international media types made as much sense as anything right now. Although this place, wherever it actually was, didn't exactly seem to be soccer country, as that was my area coverage as a Swedish sports writer. When the plane touched down I reached to the compartment above the seat to grab my hand bagage, which I always put there when flying. My laptop case was there as it was supposed to, and on top of it a squarish media tag with my name and picture. I looked at the tag in disbelief, put it around my neck and went for the exit.

As I started walking out, I turned on my cell phone. That was the moment for my next shock. When I punched in the pin code of the phone, that date seemed wrong. It suddenly said 9th February 2009, almost two years ahead of its time. 2009, the name of the Island. For an instant, I was on the verge of a panic attack. This couldn't be...

"No, get real, man. Either you're dreaming, have gone completly mad or just having some sort of temporary memorly loss from fatigue or something. It will work itself out", I thought. Then I actually smiled at the absurdity of the situation, took on my sunglasses and followed the crowd into the sunlight of the runway and on towards the awaiting shuttle bus.

Once I got myself settled in the back of the shuttle bus, I began observing my fellow media personalities. Most of them, if not all, were older than me of course. Being in my mid 20's myself, I'm used to that and I also took pleasure in secretly considering myself as somewhat of a prodigy. A variety of languages started to be spoken in the bus. In my vicinity I could make out Russian, Spanish, French, British English and something that probably was Chinese. I didn't recognize any of the men and women in the bus, which was a little odd. The world of soccer journalists aren't big enough for me not to at least know someone in any given group by face, at the very least. But then again, it wasn't half as odd as the fact that I still had no clue about what I was doing there.

I looked at the time, it was around 10.30 according to my cell phone, which still hade the 2009 date on the display for some reason. I shook my head, sighed and felt generally clueless, as someone started talking to me from the aisle of the bus.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?", a brunette woman in roughly my age asked. Without me noticing it, all the three buses outside the terminal have started to fill up and the seat next to mine was actually to only one left in this bus.

"No, of course not, go ahead", I said without paying the woman much attention. It started to feel a bit like a fish out of water here, for good reason and therefore would have prefered to be alone with thoughts during the ride. No such luck.

The bus started to move and I figured I might as well try to get some information out of the girl. She had auburn, necklenght hair, brown eyes and a fairly slender figure. I noticed that she had addressed me in a rather thick French accent, which would be as good of lead-in to a conversation as any I gathered.

"So, you're from France?", was my awfully imaginative opening line.

"Oui, that is correct. I suppose my accent got blew my cover", she said with a smile. "I am Sylvia Corrente, junior political correspondent on the Paris Match." A political correspondent, are someone kidding me, I quickly thought.

"Oh, I see. Well I'm from Sweden, my name is Jakob Andersson and I'm acually a sports writer. Normally at least", I said.

"A sports writer?", asked the French girl and looked puzzled for a second, to then burst out in giggling. "No offense, but isn't this a bit of an unusual assignment for someone who writes sports?". Now, I was actually on to something. I just had to play it right to avoid looking like a complete moron, although I certainly felt like one for the time being.

"Yeah, tell me about it", I replied and tried to go with the joke. "So what's your take on all this, as you are probably a hell of lot more informed on the topic than I am", I asked, hoping that she would take the bait and not trying to protect some precious scoop of hers or something.

"My take", she started out and suddenly looking very serious before continuing, "My take is that this both exciting and dangerous at the same time. Apparently they are supposed to have derieved quite a bit of new military technology out of this in quiet and the fact that NATO have worked along with Russia and China with this for such a long time and keeping it a secret, is headline worthy in it's own right", she said.

"The frightening side is that we still haven't been told the purpose of it all and exactly what all these new weapons are capable of", the French reporter went on.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right about that", I said in lack of anything else to say. My first thought was of course that I had no idea about what the hell she was talking about. The second one was that I knew it only too well. And that was a much more disturbing idea than my orginal line of thinking. For once in my life, I would actually gladly settle for being clueless. I glanced at my cell phone. It still said 2009 and I felt a drop of cold sweat forming in the back of my neck.

The buses had been driving up towards the hills outside the city one could make out from the airport. As my anxiety started reaching new record levels after the chat with mademoiselle Corrente, we approached a futuristic setting, as a modern constructed door was built in the mountain wall. The bus pulled over and drove towards to door, which immediatly opened up. After then getting off the bus inside the seemingly gigantic building inside the mountain, everyone was hurdled into what apparently was the press centre – two very large rooms filled with the usual fare one finds in press centres – tables, chairs, snacks, beverages and internet sockets. The media hosts were a little less than the ordinary however. Each group of people coming in to the press centre was greeted by young people in uniform – mostly a white and blue combination with what may looked to be naval ranking insignia.

"How do you do, sir. My name is Lieutenant Harris. I work here as a media liason and in case you didn't get the email containing today's programme, I have a paper copy for you here", he said with a service oriented smile and handed my a sheet of paper.

"You are of course welcome to pick up any other item of information available here in the press centre at any time, sir", the obvisouly American officer added. I vaguely nodded and went on to take a seat at the nearest table, which was already was occupied with Syliva Corrente and a couple of other French speaking individuals. I quickly nodded at them and took a chair. My French was average at the best, but apparently the Frenchies, Sylvia and two men in their 30's, were upset about something and had an animated discussion. I shrugged, none of my business.

I figured I should take a look at the media programme, as I still held on to a glimmer of hope that something on the glossy and obvisouly ad agency produced piece of folded paper, would explain all this nonsense and why I got stuck in the middle of it.

Two minutes later I found myself inside one of the bathrooms in the media centre. Cold sweatt were literally pouring down my forehead and I actually struggled to breathe at an even pace. I was standing above a zink and looked at myself in the mirror. The image was without a doubt my own – a 25 year old European sports journalists, 6´1 tall and fairly toned body coming from regular hours in the gym. My hair was dark blond and on the shorter side, trying to mix a Ivy League haircut with some light spikes. I put some cold water in my face, hoping either to wake up or get my head straight to figure out what do to next.

The media programme was exactly what I feared it would be. Except that it couldn't be. The last thing I remember before waking up on the plane was being at my place at night, getting ready for bed. According to the date on my cell phone, that was almost two years ago. My mind raced to find an easy explanation for this – the first one being that it was a vivid dream. No way. This was definitly no dream, as the dreams I normally have are very short and fragmented and I also have the ability to wake up from them at will. This was real, at least from a physical standpoint. Now I just had to get a grip of the current situation, and deal with the how's later. I picked up my cell phone again, thinking. I went to my list of contacts and started calling people, but only ended with a pre-recorded voice telling me that the numbers in question could not be reached at this moment due to heavy traffic on the network. I sighed and looked in the mirror again. "This can't be happening", I mumbled to myself.

I then remembered what I read at the media programme and looked at my watch. By now, it was probably too late to get the hell out of this island, which would the sensible thing to do. If this really was what it seemed to be, I would quickly need to come up with some sort of strategy for staying alive when the mayhem kicks off. After a deep breath, I went out of the bathroom and back to the gen pop of the media centre. The time was 11.53 and in a few minutes the main press conference would start, so consequently most of the journalists were already seated in the conferenace adjacent to the press centre. Immediatly after picking up my laptop case, I joined the rest of the pack in the huge conferance room, taking a seat pretty far back in the middle. Looking around, it appeared to be over a hundred writing journalist on spot, not counting several TV networks. At the podium, I noticed mics from CNN, Fox, ABC, BBC and Al-Jaazera, just to name a few and I failed to feel one bit of surprise, as I finally had resigned to this being what it actually was. People, with suits or uniforms, were running around the conferance stage, making sure everything was in order before the show would stat. At exactly 12.00, the young officer I briefly spoke to earlier, Lieutenant Harris, approached to podium and started talking.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to welcome you all the official international press conferance regarding the events that will take place today and the background of them", said Harris.

"With us here today we have three officers who each will speak to you on these matters during the next 30 minutes and then each of them will be available for your questions. It is a great honor for me to welcome Admiral Robert Hayes, Henry Gloval, Captain of the SDF-1 and Lt. Commander Lisa Hayes, first officer of the SDF-1, to the podium", Harris continued and then disappeared into the background of the stage as his three superior officers came in from the left in ranking order.

Even though the media guide had clearly stated that these three would appear at the press conferance, I kept looking at the podium in great disbelief. So this was actually it then. Somehow I was in some alternate type of future, where the Macross Saga of the old 80's sci-fi TV show Robotech, was actually reality. The idea felt bewildering of course and once again I found it hard to breathe. Still, I needed to focus. If I was about to lose it completly now, chances are that I would be dead in a few hours time.

I remembered the TV show, of course. I used to love watching it at VHS tapes as a kid and I also re-watched the whole thing on DVD as an adult, for the fun and nostalgia of it. The fact that I already knew what was going to happen soon, was also the only advantage I had right now. Given if this reality actually kept in line with the show. The simple fact that I was here was an discreapancy by itself, as well as everything else seems to be on par with the world as I knew it in the early 21st century, rather than the standards of the 1980's.

The Cliff Notes version on the whole thing is however that an Alien spacecraft crash landed on Earth back in 1999, and has then been rebuilt on the remote Pacific Ocean island of Macross, by a secretly strenghtend United Nations as all the resources of World's major powers were necessary to make it happen. Along with rebuildning the spaceship, a whole new breed of fighter planes and other military hardware were constructed, such as the Veritech Fighter. The Veritech basically looks like an pimped up F-16 jet at the first glance, but beneath the hood it's the fastest, swiftest and strongest fighter ever constructed. Along with handy abilities such as transformation to a gigant fighting robot when neccessary and space travel capability. All good and intresting things of course, but more bothersome is that a vicious alien race, called the Zentreadi, consisting of people six times human size, chose today, at the time of the ship's maiden voyage under UN flag, to find the spaceship, which they have been on pursuit for during quite some time. I knew that the aliens would stop at nothing trying to capture the damn ship later today and that I would have a good chance ending up in the middle of the crossfire.

My clairvoyant resume of things to supposedly come, was interrupted by the gasps and sheer awe the three officers presentations have put the rest of the journalists in. I of course knew what they were going to say and really didn't pay much attention to the spectacle, although even the seasoned veterans of international news media looked like I did in the bathroom a short while ago, when Admiral Hayes announced that the SDF-1, as the spaceship had been namned, was in fact of extra-terrestial origin. I smiled to myself, thinking that this would be a hell of Q&A-session to come.

"Admiral, do we know anything about the extra-terrestials, do you expect more of them coming to Earth and have there been any contact with them during the last ten years?", a British TV reporter asked Admiral Hayes as the Q&A's began.

"No, we not more than that they're technology is highly advanced, like we stated in the presentation. Neither do we expect to see them here or have had any contact with them. I also think that the focus here today should be on the amazing techonlogical achievements made possible through this and the spirit of international co-operation in the project, rather than fear of any aliens", Hayes replied with an attempted joke. The Admiral was a good liar. If I didn't knew any better, I too would probably had bought in the his confident nature and apparent sincerity, just like the bulk of the international media seemed to.

After the press conferance, time was almost 1.00 pm. Shuttle buses were then supposed to take journalist downtown for seeing an an air show with the Veritech Fighters at 1.30, followed by an tour on the actual SDF-1. Only problem is, I knew there wouldn't be any touring happening. Following the timeline of the TV show, the alien attack would take place just after 2.00. There was no way I could get out of the island by then. I sat down at my table in press centre, realizing that I was simply stucked in a potential war zone and having no plan on how to surive it.

At the other side of Jakob Andersson's table in the press centre, Sylvia Corrente, just like most of the other reporters on site, were almost unable to grasp what has been presented to them at the press conferance. Aliens, spaceships, transformable fighter jets and this whole revolutionizing Robotechnology. Add to that major political implications to boot. Despite all that, she couldn't help to find herself a bit puzzled about the Swedish guy she met on the bus. Andersson's behaviour during the press conferance was curious to say the least. When the officers holding the presenatation was introduced, he literally looked like he saw ghosts on the stage and then he just seemed to lose interest in what was truly groundbreaking news. Although he perhaps mainly was a sports writer, nobody on the entire planet could be so dis-interested in what had been said today as him, Sylvia pondered. Something inside her told her to privy further in the matter, perhaps it was journalistic intuition. Perhaps it was something else.

"So, Mr. Andersson, I couldn't help to notice you took the lukewarm approach to the press conferance", she said as she got her things together for the walk to the bus that would take the media corps to take a peak at the SDF-1.

"Um, first of all it's Jake. Mr. Andersson is my father", I said as the French woman for the second time today managed to interupt my thoughts. "And second, well, you know press conferances. They could be pretty dull".

"You certainly have some intresting definitions of what's dull on a press conferance. By the way, I couldn't help to notice that you seemed to recognize the officers doing the presentation. Old friends of your's perhaps?", she jokingly asked. Great poker face on the press conferance, Bengtsson, I thought. Truly amazing work.

I suddenly got the feeling that this wasn't going to go away for her. Syliva Corrente certainly seemed like the type of reporter to get stuck on things. The question for me was only how to play it. Since she'd probably be watching my moves from here on in, I might as well give her something of a heads up. Obvisouly I couldn't tell her all about my real situation, as had no desire to be brought the Macross Island psych ward. I sighed and lowered my voice, "Look, can we talk about this in private?", I asked and nodded towards the corridor between the media centre and the awaiting buses. "Fine", she said and shrugged. "Let me just pick up my stuff, we're supposed to head for the buses soon anyway". After we both moved on the a relativly tranquille part of the huge corridor, I had to say my piece and somehow make it convincing enough, for now anyway. "Ok, here's the deal", I started out while casually trying to lean my shoulder on the corridor wall. "I might know a little bit more about this whole situation than I let on when we were heading out here. Much about was being said the press conference wern't exactly breaking news to me. Let's call it more of a confirmation. And the officers, well I've done my homework on them and just got thrown back a little by seeing them in person", I said, finishing my tirade. Hopefully she'd buy it and let go. She looked at me and made a little grin. "Well, you seem to have some impressvie sources for being a sports writer", she said sarcastically and then added, "Maybe you're the own to stick around to get a scoop in this place, no?". Great, now I came off as intresting, which was the exact opposite of what I intended. Now she'll never let my out her sight, I thought. Since I still had no game plan for what I should do when the whole place were to be coming crashing down on all of us, having a overzealous French reporter on my tail wouldn't help the slightest bit. I sighed, again. "Yeah, whatever", I retorded. "We should probably head out to the buses now".


End file.
